Page 338 - bleak-house

way, passing deftly with his bare feet over the hard stones
and through the mud and mire.
Cook’s Court. Jo stops. A pause.
‘Who lives here?’
‘Him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull,’
says Jo in a whisper without looking over his shoulder.
‘Go on to the next.’
Krook’s house. Jo stops again. A longer pause.
‘Who lives here?’
‘HE lived here,’ Jo answers as before.
After a silence he is asked, ‘In which room?’
‘In the back room up there. You can see the winder from
this corner. Up there! That’s where I see him stritched out.
This is the public-ouse where I was took to.’
‘Go on to the next!’
It is a longer walk to the next, but Jo, relieved of his first
suspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him and does
not look round. By many devious ways, reeking with offence
of many kinds, they come to the little tunnel of a court, and
to the gas-lamp (lighted now), and to the iron gate.
‘He was put there,’ says Jo, holding to the bars and look-
ing in.
‘Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!’
‘There!’ says Jo, pointing. ‘Over yinder. Arnong them
piles of bones, and close to that there kitchin winder! They
put him wery nigh the top. They was obliged to stamp upon
it to git it in. I could unkiver it for you with my broom if the
gate was open. That’s why they locks it, I s’pose,’ giving it a
shake. ‘It’s always locked. Look at the rat!’ cries Jo, excited.

338 Bleak House